Nebulae

Melodic; 2006

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Math is some freaky shit. Of all the things they teach you in school that have nothing to do with real life, it has the most to do with real life, governing pretty much, you know, everything. Music is not exempt. Artists like Excepter probe the abstract theoretical spaces where math's order falls apart. Others, such as Outputmessage, prefer to mine the elegant intersections where math pulls everything together. Outputmessage's Bernard Farley, a student of math, undoubtedly knows his way around chaos theory and fractals. But you'd never know it from the utopian Nebulae, a ruly grid of algebraic linearity.

Nebulae tacitly posits a perfectible world where all relations and events can be reconciled, without spillover, in an inflexible and all-encompassing logic. In this regard it resembles a compressed, hookier Kraftwerk. Farley is adept at capturing subtle gradations of mood within a narrow range-- "Snow", for instance, is as placid and deliberate as its namesake-- but even the uptempo tracks are some permutation of remote, dreamy, and chill. On the scampering "Sommeil", a strobe-light synth flickers over loping drums and ice-chip tones, and the album spends much of its 30-odd minutes on just such convincing yet familiar intimations of futuristic splendor.

But for all his cool precision, Farley is clearly more interested in songs than sounds-- you can tell from his haymaker dynamic shifts and his hazy verse/chorus structures. He has a weird knack for making techno sound like Dismemberment Plan. "Glintz" has the formula nailed-- reverbed synth stabs, weightlessly galloping drums, a floating undercurrent of two alternating melodic tones (a Farley favorite), and a buzzing, rubbery bass countermelody. Even the rain of tiny chimes sounds mechanical; every rhythmic agent is clearly outlined and coasting on rails; no hiccups disrupt the unstinting thrust.

Farley's few stabs at the off-kilter make clear why he usually sticks to the seamless-- he's better at it. "Approaching Skyline" is the album's first sign of irregularity, with its damaged drum track and bleating bass blobs, although soon enough a spacey synth straightens out the crooked percussion like a back brace. Farley's compositions don't seem as exciting when they're plodding predictably, each shift telegraphed from a mile away. But on livelier tracks, this same predictability occasions rollercoaster-type qualities of anticipation and momentum. No one likes a roller coaster running at half speed. Happily, "Nouvelle Forme" gets things moving again with its sputtering synths and spring-wound drums, its vibrant collision of resonant and rimmy percussive tones.

Nebulae is for the most part winning but defiantly unsubtle-- there's no search for anything, no struggle or slippage. It's another frictionless glide above another distant crystal city, sometimes breathtaking, always flawless and clinically removed, and, as such, tinged with a vague ennui.